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Planning staff previews 2025 Factbook: population growth, housing surge and shifting housing mix
Summary
Planning staff presented the City of Fairfax 2025 Factbook at the commission work session, highlighting population growth to an estimated 26,340 in 2024, a recent surge in multifamily construction, rising sale prices and changes in housing-unit composition and student yield ratios.
Planning Department staff presented the City of Fairfax’s 2025 Factbook during a Monday work session, summarizing updated population, housing and economic figures and several new charts that track recent redevelopment and market trends.
Staff said the city’s 2024 population estimate is 26,340 and noted that the recent surge in new multifamily construction since 2020 has driven that increase. The factbook shows a marked change in housing composition: multifamily units grew from 28% of the city’s housing stock in 2019 to about 36% by the end of 2024. Staff added that several projects approved but not yet built are expected to continue that trend.
The factbook presentation included new and updated housing-price charts. Staff described a conservative method for estimated market values (assessed value plus 10 percent) and presented sales-price data that show many homes are selling for well above assessed value; in 2024 some housing categories had median sales at 115–120% of assessed values and roughly one-fifth of 2024 city sales exceeded assessed value by more than 25 percent. Staff also provided a mid‑year 2025 update showing a modest tempering of year-over-year price appreciation in the first half of 2025 compared with 2024, and noted sales volume was lower in the first six months of 2025 (121 sales January–June 2025 versus 270 total sales in 2024).
Other highlights included demographic charts showing that Fairfax City’s share of residents age 65 and older remains above the regional average but is less pronounced than in prior years, and a series of housing charts that illustrate the city’s recent development surge (the 2020s construction boom accounts for a large share of the city’s current multifamily stock).
Staff also reviewed transportation and environment items summarized in the factbook: traffic volumes on major corridors are generally approaching pre-pandemic levels (data in presentation updated through 2022), Kyuh transit boarding hotspots were identified, and the city’s stream-restoration prioritization highlighted several project areas, with three priority stream-restoration projects identified for further analysis.
Commissioners praised the factbook’s depth and asked staff to circulate source materials and recordings of related briefings (some commissioners requested the stream-restoration presentation materials given its technical detail). Staff said the factbook and archived prior editions are available online at fairfaxva.gov/factbook.
